


Shadows of the Past

by Cameron_McKell



Series: Upon Further Review [3]
Category: Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: Bullying, Circuit Touching, M/M, Mild Blood, Non-Human Humanoid Society, Non-Human Humanoids, Tron Fandom Ship Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-19
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-27 01:20:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/972651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cameron_McKell/pseuds/Cameron_McKell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tron is not a new program; Sam is just fine with that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadows of the Past

“I'm fine, Tron, really. I think the bleeding's stopping, anyway. We don't have to stop here.”

 

“Yes we do,” Tron's reply brooked no argument, but Sam could see the tension building in his limbs and shoulders. Tron was never particularly pleased on their visits to ENCOM's mainframe – which Sam suspected had less to do with the goals of their trips, and more to do with what had become of Tron's home, the system he was written on – but now they were stranded here, unless they could manage to secure some form of transportation, and Sam had a gash in his leg that would probably require a good amount of stitches in the User world.

 

Stupid gridbugs.

 

They'd managed to hobble to one of the system's hubs – one of Sam's arms around Tron's shoulders, most of his weight being carried by the program – and then maneuvered into the nearest non-restricted building.

 

It was a club.

 

For a second, Sam would have bet money that Tron's eye twitched.

 

The whole place was awash with color; the walls rapidly strobed through every color combination imaginable, and a few extra that Sam was pretty sure didn't exist except in the digital world, in such a way that he'd never been more grateful to not be prone to having seizures. Taking that into account, it still made him nauseous, though that could also be the leg wound. The music was loud and made of many contradictory layers, as if the music programs involved couldn't decide _what_ to play, so they decided to play _everything,_ all at once.

 

Then there were the programs; the tendency of Users to use their computers to look up illicit materials had translated over into the digital world somewhat, or there was something in the drinks here, because a solid third of the programs in the building were outright interfacing in public, and almost half of those left over were participating in illegal, unmonitored games toward the back – he could make out one game of Jai Alai up on the catwalks, two three-way free-for-all Disc Wars that kept merging together then reforming in different combinations, and, wait a second, was that _backgammon? –_ while the remainder split their time between drinking and dancing.

 

“This way,” Tron called almost directly into Sam's ear, and still he only _just_ heard him over the cacophony, though he would have been able to figure out the meaning easily enough when Tron began to gently lead him to a relatively unoccupied portion of the bar. The whole, sometimes circuitous, walk over, Tron kept his posture perfectly straight, and his expression vaguely uninviting but still polite; Sam wasn't sure how he kept his dignified composure, unless he'd turned his eyes off – which he was actually able to _do,_ the cheater – that if Sam wasn't seeing it with his own eyes, he'd have thought Tron was heading off to convene a meeting with the Grid's monitors, or check in with the maintenance suites, not looking for a ride home in the middle of Spring Break Meets the Kaleidoscope of Gastrointestinal Doom.

 

Sam fell into the nearest chair gracelessly, and began furtively exploring the wound on his leg, while Tron settled into his own seat, and shot the bartender a look – focused, pupils faintly backlit by energy, and oddly articulate – that Sam associated with him sending out a ping.

 

A couple min- micro- _somethings_ later, the bartender walked over, two drinks already in hand – apparently Tron had gone ahead and ordered for them – and set one down in front of each of them, “It's been cycles since I had a program order this variety.” He made a show of looking them over, from their comparatively conservative suits – in comparison to the more colorful and ostentatious club fare surrounding them – to Sam's leg, before finally resting on their empty baton slots. “Ran into some trouble?”

 

“You could say that,” Sam grumbled and took a large gulp of his drink. He promptly followed this with resting his head down on the bar top, and waited either for his heart to hammer out of his chest from the shot of adrenaline disguised as a drink – his taste buds, having not been designed to handle the various flavors of energy, translated this one as a sort of spicy orange; not bad, but clearly something to be sipped at or run the risk of cardiac arrest – or the world to come back into focus.

 

Tron gave him a look, eyebrow raised _just so_ , and Sam responded rationally, and like the adult he was, and the program probably didn't understand what the gesture meant anyway. Jerk.

 

“Location query, analogue dispensary. Confirm?” Another flash of the eyes, another ping, and as usual Tron seemed to lose all grasp of the English language when partially outside his own head; the glow lingered this time, and Sam gave him a curious look from his vantage point on the bar, until he caught sight of the hand Tron had held over the empty baton slot on his left thigh. Probably relaying specs, then.

 

“Who even _talks_ like that anymore?”

 

Hauling himself upright, Sam looked over at the program a few feet down the bar, and the small group clustered near him; they were scantily dressed to emphasize and outright flaunt their circuitry, which was brightly overcharged, with disks of nearly identical shade – which matched none of their circuitry – which marked them to Sam's eyes as all built from the same template.

 

Tron ignored them.

 

One of Program 1's friends, the only female in the group of four, elbowed the third in their group, who looked rather like a linebacker, and nodded toward the two of them; Mr. Linebacker showed his teeth with a look too viciously pleased to be called a smile, while the female spoke, “He probably can't hear you; I can detect his version history from _here._ They probably didn't even have this level of input/output when something as out-of-date as _that_ was made.”

 

Sam frowned, but Tron continued to ignore the group heckling him. About his _age_ , no less, never mind the fact that Tron was still the best security program out there; over a thousand cycles of fighting, honing and developing his skills and utility, didn't exactly lend itself to falling out of date.

 

Tron was the best; having come to this _entirely_ _unbiased_ conclusion about his significant other – 'boyfriend' made him feel like a preteen girl, 'lover' felt vaguely shallow, and he hadn't quite worked up to the necessary discussions for anything like 'fiancee'; maybe there was a program term that applied? – Sam caught up Tron's hand, gave it a light squeeze, and shot the power-drunk bullies a dirty look.

 

Things continued on in this matter for a long time – the pack of shoddily crafted programs seeming to work down a checklist of insults and threats while Tron just _ignored_ _them,_ and Sam got steadily angrier on his behalf – until tensions were peaking, and _something_ had to give.

 

That something turned out to be Sam.

 

The last straw came when the fourth of the group – a heavily freckled program – nodded at the third, who moved to crowd Tron from behind while Freckle boxed him in at the bar, crowding his side opposite from Sam, then muttered, almost conversationally, “It's _got_ to be some sort of nostalgia; what other reason would there be for a User to keep around an _obsolete_ _waste_ _of_ _data-space,_ when they could have the _cutting_ edge?”

 

The whole group had their disks in hand, now, and Sam saw red; when he found the Users who wrote these programs he was _so_ going to fire them. “Hey! Leave him alone! You have no idea what you're-”

 

He cut off abruptly when Tron lightly put his free hand on his arm. Sam gave him an outraged and vaguely hopeful look – he was _so_ going to mess them up – but Tron just shook his head and glanced down at his leg pointedly, as a reminder that the User was in no position to start a fight, then finally turned to regard the group now surrounding them.

 

“I pity you.”

 

The whole group tensed, but it was the first program that finally spoke up, “What?”

 

“I've watched the fall and rise of five long-standing, separate operating systems; I was directly involved with these timestamps for three. I know the completion of _purpose,_ and dedication to that purpose. I have faced off against armies, and survived. I have seen the power of Users, and I've seen their sun rise. I can draft _my own_ updates, but still understand the gift that is a User's upgrade. I have known love, in its various iterations, many times throughout my runtime.” Tron glanced Sam's way at this point, and his whole posture went soft with affection for an all-too-brief moment; then, once again composed, he stood slowly, and turned to face the group again as he talked, and it was the first time in a long time that he seemed like the ancient warrior he was. “Do you even know your Users' _names?”_

 

The bartender returned during the ensuing silence – and when had _he_ gone? – and laid a baton on the table. It looked similar to the batons they'd lost, except that it was silvery white. “Definitely confirmed,” he very-belatedly replied as he took in the scene, smirking. Tron thanked him, then gestured for Sam to stand and shuffle back from the bar while he scooped up the baton. He paused halfway to clipping the baton on, though, to shoot the bartender a knowing look.

 

Their 'friends' were starting to sputter their way out of the loop they'd fallen into, so Tron wasted no more time clipping the baton in place, and supporting Sam out the door.

 

Once out on the street, Sam nodded toward the baton, “So what did he bring you?”

 

Tron delayed answering for a moment by steadying Sam so he could stand unassisted while he rezzed their transportation in, “An 'obsolete waste of data-space', apparently.” He leaped forward gracefully, and was soon astride a white second-generation light cycle, like the one Sam's father had kept in his hideout. Unlike newer generations of light cycles, which attached to the riding program's disk to integrate them into the frame of the vehicle, the closed 'cockpit' design of the older light cycle allowed Sam to squeeze in behind Tron, though there wasn't much room to spare. It was downright _intimate_.

 

That suited Sam _just fine_.

 

“Fastest thing on the Grid,” Sam mumbled into Tron's shoulder as the cover shifted into place and the program began to drive. Those programs were just making fools of themselves. They knew _nothing_.

 

“What was that?” Tron asked, driving with his typical poise, as if recalculating his every maneuver to factor in Sam's additional weight was easy; to him, it probably was.

 

“Nothing,” Sam just smiled to himself, and held on tight, never mind that they were both safely sealed into the cockpit.


End file.
